Stealing the Sword of Gryffindor
by danielie
Summary: "We'll take the sword now," Neville agreed, and Ginny's heart danced. "It's better in our hands than Snape's. Once we have it, we'll keep it in the Room of Requirement until we find a way to pass it on to Harry." It was a great plan, in theory.


The Alternate _Deathly Hallows _Chapter 15:

**Stealing the Sword of Gryffindor**

* * *

Ginny and Neville stood guard outside of the dark Transfiguration classroom, lit only by a flickering torch on the opposite wall. They listened closely, praying that they would hear no footsteps over the sound of crumbling stone.

"Remember, Luna, it doesn't have to be a piece of fine art," Neville whispered through the partially open door, looking sharply up the corridor at the sound of a small, metallic crash. A bat flew out of a suit of armor and past him, down the dark corridor. "We need to keep moving, we've got more locations to hit."

"Oh, you may be right," Luna said dreamily, and the sound of cascading stone paused. Ginny walked into the classroom and saw Luna standing, wand outstretched, in front of a wall bearing _Dumbledore's Army, St_ in fine cursive. "I just thought it might please the students to see something pretty instead of Dark for a change…"

"_Defodio_," Ginny shook her head as she cast the Gouging Spell and moved her wand. Bits of the stone wall crashed to the floor as her rougher letters were carved alongside Luna's, completing the message _Dumbledore's Army, Still Recruiting._

"I heard somethin'."

Ginny stopped casting the spell immediately. She and Luna looked towards the door as Neville ducked inside the Transfiguration classroom, looking back them with frightened eyes. Ginny and Luna ran silently to meet him, hiding just out of sight of the doorway, but close enough to hear their pursuers talking. Ginny leaned back against the wall with her heart pounding, wand at the ready.

"Forget you heard anything," Alecto Carrow said dismissively.

"It's them damn students," Amycus insisted. "I know it's them! Damn graffiti all over the school, Dumbledumb's Army been beggin' for punishment—"

"I said forget it!" Alecto said shrilly. Ginny heard the shifting of something wrapped in paper. "We have more important things to do than bother with those brats! Snape told us that when the sword's been sent back, we gotta put it in the Headmaster's office!"

Ginny's wand shook with the force of her clenched fist.

"That git's never even there," Amycus spat. "Always in that dank dungeon, he is."

"Don't be dim! If anything happens to this sword, we'll be killed for sure!" His sister's final warning seemed enough to get Amycus to follow her on the path to the Headmaster's office.

Neville let out a long sigh of relief and slid down the wall as the Carrows' footsteps died away, only to draw himself back up to full height when Ginny wheeled around to face him.

"It's Gryffindor's sword," Ginny said quickly. "The Carrows are giving Snape Gryffindor's sword! We have to get it, Harry needs it for—"

"Gryffindor's sword?" Neville repeated. "What's that got to do with—"

"Dumbledore left it to Harry in his will, but the Ministry confiscated it," Ginny rushed through the explanation. "They're just now sending it back, and it's gone to Snape, of all people!"

"_Lumos,_" Luna piped up, and the three friends were bathed in wandlight. "Professor Snape is the new Headmaster, so it's likely Ministry protocol that he gets the sword."

"Snape killed Dumbledore," Neville refuted, "and he's a Slytherin, so if that really is Gryffindor's sword—"

"—he absolutely shouldn't have it!" Ginny agreed. The Transfiguration classroom echoed with the force of her voice. "Listen, we have to take it now—"

"_Now?_"

Ginny insisted, her brown eyes blazing in the wandlight, "Harry needs it for his mission!"

Neville and Luna shared a knowing glance. Neville crossed his arms awkwardly and looked away, but Luna spoke without missing a beat.

"You get a very fierce look in your eyes whenever you talk about Harry," she said, and Ginny's face went as red as her hair. "It is good of you to want to help him, but you both can be so reckless."

"I'm not being reckless," Ginny said defiantly. Luna's astuteness frustrated her: Ginny did react strongly whenever Harry was mentioned, because she needed to believe, against all odds, that he was still alive.

Luna's blue eyes seemed to see right through her. "It might be better to form a plan, and take it another time."

"Snape could move the sword at any moment, without us even knowing!" Ginny looked at Neville pleadingly, needing him to break their stalemate. "This may be the best chance we have—the Carrows don't seem to have told Snape that the sword is here yet, and he's not in his office."

Luna looked to Neville contemplatively. They did not have to wait long for his decision.

"We'll take it now," he said, and Ginny's heart danced. "It's better in our hands than Snape's. Once we have it, we'll keep it in the Room of Requirement until we find a way to pass it on to Harry."

Luna merely tilted her head to the side in acquiescence. "_Nox_," she said, and the trio was once again shrouded in near-complete darkness. They made their way through the passageway and up the school's winding stairs by the firelight from the torches, hurrying to the entrance to the Headmaster's office on the seventh floor.

"Another interruption," the gargoyle said, displeased, "and from students, at this time of night! The Headmaster is not in."

"We're not here for Snape," said Neville.

The gargoyle considered this. "Then do you have a password?"

Luna put a finger to her chin and looked at the ceiling. "I suppose we'll have to guess…"

"There's no time," Ginny insisted. "Please, we're here to do something Professor Dumbledore would have wanted—"

At once, the gargoyle leapt aside, and Ginny, Neville, and Luna were startled when the wall behind it halved, revealing a spiral stone staircase. "Good guess!" Luna said cheerfully, leading the way up stairs. Neville looked at Ginny questioningly, but she shook her head, unsure whether she had even said the password. They climbed the stairs behind Luna, and Neville stepped forward to open the oak door to the Headmaster's office.

Harry had told Ginny that the Headmaster's office was large, but the room was even more expansive than she had expected. Under Snape's tenure, the swirling objects that had belonged to Dumbledore were relegated to one bookcase. In the darkness of the space, all Ginny could make out on the Headmaster's desk was a stone bowl and several worn books.

"_Lumos,_" Luna said quietly, and stepped quietly around the office with her wand. She illuminated Gryffindor's sword on the far wall, hanging in a glass case. "Here it is."

Neville nodded, pointing his wand at the glass case. "_Accio Sword._"Nothing happened. "_Alohomora,_" Neville tried again, with no result.

There were counterspells on the sword. Ginny narrowed her eyes. The only ways they could get the sword would involve making substantial noise, which might alert others to their presence. But this was for Harry…

"_Diffindo!_" Ginny slashed her wand at the case, and long, white cracks appeared in the glass, spreading over its surface before it imploded into a mess of shards. Ginny slipped her wand into her pocket, her shoes crunching on the broken glass as she ran over to the silver sword, taking its ruby-encrusted hilt into her hands.

"THIEVES!"

Ginny staggered in fright, redoubling her grip on the sword as she and Neville looked wildly around the room for the source of the voice. Neville lit his wand, and it shone on the portrait of a fierce wizard with long, black hair.

"HOW DARE YOU?" the portrait bellowed at them. Alarmed, Neville waved his wand higher, and Ginny saw several other portraits around the room stirring. "MISCREANTS THIEVING FROM THE HEADMASTER'S OFFICE—"

"Thank you, Phineas Nigellus," said a kinder voice. "Perhaps Ms. Weasley, Ms. Lovegood, and Mr. Longbottom have an explanation."

The portrait of Albus Dumbledore looked kindly upon his students. All three felt the sudden security that came from Dumbledore's presence.

"You know these scoundrels?!" Phineas Nigellus accused.

"Professor, we know you wanted to leave this sword to Harry," Ginny said, before Phineas Nigellus could begin another tirade.

"I did," Dumbledore said patiently, "in much the same way I wanted sherbet lemon when outside the Muggle world. Every so often, we desire things that we cannot have."

"Very true," Luna said serenely. "Sometimes, in the river near my house, I wait for hours to catch a simple gulping plimpy—"

"We'll give it to him for you!" Neville declared. "Once we get out of here, we'll find a way to get it to Harry!"

Dumbledore's calm expression did not change. "Do you think Harry will be unable to succeed without the sword?"

"I know Harry will win in the end, Professor," Ginny said passionately. "But if this sword has any chance of helping him, we have to give it to him!" The silver sword felt heavy in Ginny's arms: the weight of the sword Harry had used to save her, the weight of the love they had been forced to abandon. "I just can't stay here and do nothing!"

A hint of a smile appeared on Dumbledore's face. His blue eyes seemed to twinkle at her. "Give Harry my regards."

A rush of happiness passed through Ginny at Dumbledore's blessing.

"I shall see to it that you three are expelled!" Phineas Nigellus yelled as Neville helped Ginny gather the sword in her arms. "Do not think for a moment that you will escape punishment!"

"You shouldn't yell so much, sir," Luna said, her large eyes gazing at Phineas Nigellus. "Gnargals might grow in your throat."

Phineas Nigellus' face crumpled in confusion and disgust.

"Thanks, Professor," Neville said to Dumbledore, and his portrait waved to them as they walked out of the oak door, the sword of Gryffindor clutched to Ginny's chest and partially hidden by the sleeve of her robe. Her heart beat with exhilaration against its hilt as they descended the stone staircase: finally, she would be able to help Harry, she might even be able to see him—

"Oh no," Luna breathed, and Ginny looked down the staircase to see Severus Snape staring back up at them, a quarter of the way up the steps. His greasy, black hair slid down his shoulders when he took another step toward them.

"Weasley," he said, the menace barely hidden beneath his voice. "Accompanied by Lovegood and Longbottom…I expected some petty theft to occur in my office."

"It's not your office!" Neville roared despite himself. Ginny saw his hands shaking with anger and fear. "It's Professor Dumbledore's!"

"_Silencio_," Snape said dismissively, and Neville yelled back, grasping at his mouth in horror when no sound came out.

"No!" Ginny screamed, facing Snape angrily. "Give him his voice back!"

"When he has something sensible to say," said Snape, "if ever. Give me the sword, Weasley."

The sound of heavy footfalls erupted from the corridor below. "I _told_ ya I heard somethin'!" Amycus Carrow stuffed himself into the staircase, his piglike face gasping from the effort of the run. "You three again, I knew it! Always causin' some ruckus! Punishment's been headin' yer way, even if yeh are pureblood!"

"Amycus," Snape cautioned, but Amycus' eyes were mad once he set them on Ginny.

"Got you this time, pretty!" Amycus laughed at her. "_Crucio!_"

"_Protego!_" Luna cried just in time; the Unforgivable Curse smashed an invisible barrier in front of Ginny and ricocheted into the darkness.

In a flash, Ginny had shifted the sword to one side of her body and grabbed her wand out of her pocket with her free hand. She pointed it at Amycus and yelled, "_Vespertilio Ictus!_"

Amycus screeched infinite bats shrouded his face, flying in all directions. He struggled to aim at Ginny through the chaos. "_Cruci—_"

For just one second, Snape was more horribly, viciously angry than Ginny had ever seen him. With a wave of his wand, he dispelled the bats and nonverbally Disarmed Amycus with such force that Amycus' arm was flung behind him. His wand hit the stone wall surrounding the staircase and clattered all the way down to the bottom step.

"What for?!" Amycus complained, clutching his arm. "I'm punishin' these students the way I'm s'posed to—"

"They stole from my office and I will punish them myself," Snape growled. He climbed the steps toward Ginny, Neville, and Luna two at a time, and snatched the sword of Gryffindor out of Ginny's hands. Ginny gasped in protest, nearly reaching out to struggle with Snape, but Neville grasped her wrist. Ginny looked at him in exasperation, but felt immediate guilt when she locked eyes with voiceless Neville, the expression on his face reflecting the frustration she felt.

"Weasley, the gene for disruptive behavior and disobedience may run in your family, but I do not care for it. You three will serve detention with Hagrid. If the potential consequences of trespassing in my office do not terrify you, perhaps the beasts of the Forbidden Forest will.

"Return to your respective dormitories," Snape said, and Ginny felt defeated when he grasped the hilt of Gryffindor's sword, her one chance to help Harry, in his left hand. He waved his wand wordlessly, and Neville choked as his voice was returned. "Do so without speaking, or Amycus shall have his chance to discipline you."

Ginny, Luna, and Neville looked at each other despondently. They walked past Snape, refusing to meet his eyes out of sheer defiance. They walked in opposite directions once outside the Headmaster's corridor, Luna left toward Ravenclaw Tower; Ginny and Neville toward Gryffindor Tower, the darkness of the corridors seeming much deeper than when they had arrived.

* * *

A/N: Author's Note

I wrote this fanfic for my Harry Potter class, and I thought ffnet would enjoy it. Ginny is my favorite character. I was very excited when I read _Deathly Hallows _and Griphook said that she, Luna, and Neville had attempted to steal the sword of Gryffindor for Harry. I had always had ideas in my mind for how it had happened, and I was excited to finally write my version of the scene.

The gargoyle opens for Ginny because she said "Dumbledore." During the Battle at Hogwarts, the gargoyle opens for Harry with the password Dumbledore (_Deathly Hallows_ 662). I highly doubt that Snape set the password to be Dumbledore: I think the gargoyle opened the door as a sign of solidarity to Dumbledore. I imagined that it would open the same way for Ginny, who was acting to fulfill Dumbledore's wish of giving the sword to Harry.

_Vespertilio Ictus _(Latin for "bat blows") is my invented incantation of the Bat-Bogey Hex, which does not have a canon incantation. I just really wanted to see Ginny use it in action!

I really hope that you enjoyed reading this story as much as I enjoyed writing it. Please review!


End file.
